{"id":363,"date":"2018-03-12T05:11:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T05:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/?p=363"},"modified":"2018-07-11T08:15:08","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T08:15:08","slug":"brad-federman-employee-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/brad-federman-employee-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Brad Federman, Chief Operating Officer, F&H Solutions Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brad<\/a>Brad is an author<\/strong>, a speaker<\/strong>, and consultant<\/strong> with more than 25 years of corporate experience in various aspects of human resources including performance management and employee engagement, employee compensation, executive recruiting, change management and instructional design. His background also includes sales, marketing, product development, and operations.<\/p>\n

Brad works with clients to strengthen their brands through Culture, leadership and people initiatives. He helps clients develop the best talent and reputation and provides them with the tools to help clients become the organization of choice for both employees and customers.<\/p>\n

He is a member<\/strong> of the Forbes Coaches Council<\/strong>, a frequently requested featured speaker<\/strong> for television, conferences and business meetings worldwide, an author of three books and has been interviewed for national publications.<\/p>\n

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What does employee engagement mean to you?<\/h2>\n

Employee engagement means higher profits and better attendance.\u00a0 Increased shareholder value.\u00a0 A stronger safety record.\u00a0 But most importantly it means both the employer and the employee benefit.\u00a0 The employer\/employee contract that used to exist is gone.\u00a0 It is no longer about tenure or being a good corporate citizen.\u00a0 Today\u2019s relationship is uniquely different.\u00a0 Employees have a 30-50 year career window where they have to produce income. They will need to do this without a safety net. There is no such thing as lifetime employment. They will need to stay competitive and have a strong and relevant skill set. They will need to be able to function independently and interdependently in fast-changing and ambiguous situations. Employers that provide robust development, challenging opportunities and an environment where an employee can help drive the company forward through their own choices, decisions and work style can expect to keep people longer and see better performance along the way. They can\u2019t expect loyalty in the old manner. Employees won\u2019t salute and answer yes, but they will ask why. They will challenge the status quo. That is a new loyalty.\u00a0 Giving it their all and questioning current reality. Both the employer and the employee have to give something to make it work and they both get something in return.<\/p>\n

How to measure employee engagement?<\/h2>\n

There are a number of ways to measure employee engagement.\u00a0 The first way is to use a traditional employee engagement survey.\u00a0 They work well, but there are challenges.\u00a0 People can burn out on surveys.\u00a0 The biggest challenge is that organizations spend their time and energy measuring engagement and very little time and money actually addressing it.\u00a0 Eighty cents on the dollar should be spent on influencing engagement.\u00a0 The other challenge is that organizations get caught up in the score.\u00a0 They want the numbers to always rise and that is unrealistic.\u00a0 It is a measurement tool, like having a physical and it should be viewed in that manner.\u00a0 Another measurement tool is a pulse dialogue survey.\u00a0 This is a survey typically completed once a month or a quarter that only has one or two items\/questions.\u00a0 Typically one question is a Likert scale question and then the other is open-ended allowing the person to comment on why they provided that rating or what the company can do to improve that rating. Companies use this method to quickly address issues going on such as increasing trust, improving benefits, responding to challenges with organizational change or the impact of a merger.\u00a0 They also use it to ensure senior leadership hears from employees and that senior leadership responds back.\u00a0 There are countless ways to measure. We have to also help individuals measure their own engagement and understand how they can get themselves more engaged and help engage their colleagues.\u00a0Now that is interesting because the level of accountability goes way up.<\/p>\n

What are the common causes of employee disengagement?<\/h2>\n

Disengagement is a personal thing.\u00a0 Each person engages for their own reasons and also disengage for their own reasons.\u00a0 Most of the time people disengage because they are not challenged, not growing, or because they do not feel valued, respected and safe at work.\u00a0 Another big reason has to do with the brand of the organization.\u00a0 Employees want to feel a sense of pride.\u00a0 When their organization has a strong respected brand they are more likely to be engaged.\u00a0 One aspect of the brand is the ability for the brand to impact the local and\/or broader community.\u00a0 Especially with the younger generations, employees want to feel they are making a difference.\u00a0 They want to know that their organization is more than a profit center.<\/p>\n

What are the drivers of employee engagement in today\u2019s fast-moving\u00a0world?<\/h2>\n

There are a number of drivers that engage employees, but let me highlight two.\u00a0 First is career and skill development.\u00a0People need to feel they are more marketable in the job market this year over last.\u00a0 They need to feel their skill set has improved this year over last.\u00a0 The second driver is appreciation.\u00a0 Employees do not want recognition, but to feel appreciated.\u00a0 Really appreciated.\u00a0 This is an area where most organizations fall short.\u00a0 They have recognition programs because they have been told to. But the day-to-day culture sends a very different message to their employees.<\/p>\n

What makes a really effective employee engagement\u00a0programme? Any best practices to share.<\/h2>\n

The most effective program is not making it a program.\u00a0 At the center of engagement are two things.\u00a0 Engagement is personal and about relationships.\u00a0 Organizations that remember those two factors are more successful than others.\u00a0 To make engagement effective it needs to become part of your culture.\u00a0 It needs to be reflected in your leadership and management style.\u00a0 Engagement has to be woven into the way we work. One key we work on with clients is changing the way they meet.\u00a0 Your meetings and dialogue should reflect engagement.\u00a0 If implemented well, employee engagement becomes part of the fabric of your culture and how you operate affects everything from hiring to decision making and from leadership to the way you let people go.<\/p>\n

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\"Do<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brad is an author, a speaker, and consultant with more than 25 years of corporate experience in various aspects of human resources including performance management and employee engagement, employee compensation, executive recruiting, change management and instructional design. His background also includes sales, marketing, product development, and operations. Brad works with clients to strengthen their brands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}